Contention on the Meanings and Uses of Urban Space in Turku as the European Capital of Culture 2011

2013 ◽  
pp. 153-164
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
European Capital Of Culture

scholarly journals THE SPACE OF WROCŁAW IN THE CONTEXT OF ECC 2016 MICROGRANTS PROGRAM REALIZATION – RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-295
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Wieszaczewska
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Cultural Activity ◽  
Cultural Events ◽  
Cultural Activities ◽  
European Capital Of Culture ◽  
The People ◽  
The City

In 2016, the title of the European Capital of Culture was awarded to Wrocław. To celebrate the year of 2016 citizens could partake in many cultural initiatives prepared specially for this occasion. The proposals aimed at the people of Wrocław included the ECC 2016 Microgrants program, under which any citizen could realize, gain funding, as well as obtain administrative and promotional support for their designed cultural activity. Field studies conducted during the first two editions of the program served as the basis for a report, which includes conclusions regarding the perception of the urban space submitted by task performers. Low-budget cultural activities proved to be an excellent pretext for the citizens to reconsider the issues of public space in Wrocław, access to cultural events or the manner of constructing official discourses about the city and its space. This article focuses on the issue of space in the context of Microgrants 2016 and presents the outcomes of the fieldwork.

The impact of a mega-event on city branding: The European Capital of Culture 2010 and the image of Istanbul

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evinç Doğan ◽  
Ibrahim Sirkeci
Keyword(s):  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Place Branding ◽  
World City ◽  
City Branding ◽  
City Image ◽  
European Capital Of Culture ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Symbolic Production ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

This study examines the ways in which the city image of Istanbul is re-created through the mega-events within the context of the European Capital of Culture (ECoC) 2010. Istanbul “took the stage” as one of the three ECoC cities (Essen for the Ruhr in Germany and Pécs in Hungary), where the urban spaces were projected as the theatre décor while residents and visitors became the spectators of the events. Organisers and agents of the ECoC 2010 seemed to rebrand Istanbul as a “world city” rather than a “European capital”. With a series of transnational connotations, this can be considered as part of an attempt to turn Istanbul to a global city. In this study we examine posters used during the ECoC 2010 to see whether this was evident in the promoted images of Istanbul. The research employs a hermeneutic approach in which representations, signs and language are the means of symbolic meaning, which is analysed through qualitative methods for the visual data (Visual Analysis Methods), namely Semiotics and Discourse Analysis. The analysed research material comes from a sample of posters released during the ECoC 2010 to promote 549 events throughout the year. Using stratified random sampling we have drawn 28 posters (5% of the total) reflecting the thematic groups of events in the ECoC 2010. Particular attention is also paid to the reflexivity of the researchers and researchers’ embeddedness to the object of research. The symbolic production and visual representation are therefore investigated firstly through the authoritative and historically constituted discourses in the making of Istanbul image and secondly through the orders of cultural consumption and mediatisation of culture through spectacular events. Hence enforcing a transnationalisation of the image of the city where the image appears to be almost stateless transcending the national boundaries. Findings and methodology used in this study can be useful in understanding similar cases and further research into the processes of city and place branding and image relationships. 

Book Review

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-389
Author(s):  
Eduardo Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
City Image ◽  
European Capital Of Culture ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
The City ◽  
The Olympic Games

Evinç Doğan (2016). Image of Istanbul, Impact of ECoC 2010 on The City Image. London: Transnational Press London. [222 pp, RRP: £18.75, ISBN: 978-1-910781-22-7]The idea of discovering or creating a form of uniqueness to differentiate a place from others is clearly attractive. In this regard, and in line with Ashworth (2009), three urban planning instruments are widely used throughout the world as a means of boosting a city’s image: (i) personality association - where places associate themselves with a named individual from history, literature, the arts, politics, entertainment, sport or even mythology; (ii) the visual qualities of buildings and urban design, which include flagship building, signature urban design and even signature districts and (iii) event hallmarking - where places organize events, usually cultural (e.g., European Capital of Culture, henceforth referred to as ECoC) or sporting (e.g., the Olympic Games), in order to obtain worldwide recognition. 

Virtual Embodiment as/and the Threshold of Love

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Harris
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
State Building ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Empire State Building ◽  
Arcades Project ◽  
Performance Texts ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Stranger

This essay draws upon the author’s performance script Fall and Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project as a provocation for considering the ways performance texts provide a threshold for somatic inquiry, and for recognizing the limits of scholarly analysis that does not take up performance-as-inquiry. Set at the Empire State Building, this essay embodies the connections and missed possibilities between strangers and intimates in the context of urban modern life. Fall’s protagonist is positioned within a landscape of capitalist exchange, but defies this matrix to offer instead a gift at the threshold of life/death, virtual/real, and love/loss. Through somatic inquiry and witnessing as threshold experiences, the protagonist (as Benjamin’s flaneur) moves through urban space and time, proving that both scholarship and performance remain irrevocably embodied, and as such invariably tethered to the visceral, the stranger, risk, and death.

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